One of the fundamental powers of reason according to Kant, Immanuel, which is able to exercise its judgement without the mediation of pleasure. In critical theory desire and pleasure are usually opposed to one another---desire is treated as a continuous flow, while pleasure is treated as an arrest of that flow, or an irruption that somehow brings desire to an end. For this reason desire is often categorized as sacred, while pleasure is consigned to the profane. There are two different debates concerning desire. The first is whether desire is cognitive or instinct, or to put it another way, voluntary or involuntary. The second is whether desire is self-motivating or not. The general consensus, with regard to the first question, is that desire belongs to the instincts, it is a force that flows through us which we have to learn to channel and contain in order to become âcivilizedâ. There are two vehemently opposed camps with regard to the second question: on the one side there is Lacan, Jacques, who argues that desire is motivated by lack (that it constantly flows toward an object it cannot obtain), while in the other camp is Deleuze, Gilles, who, rather like Kant, treats desire as one of the basic forces of nature itself.